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Wednesday morning Talking Points: O-line injuries a concern

Most NFL teams are coming down with injury issues as training camps — and the two-a-days that seem to be the source of many of the problems — start coming to an end. For the Dolphins, a significant percentage of those dings involve the offensive line, which is where we start our talking points for Wednesday:

1. The rash of injuries on the offensive line has coach Tony Sparano concerned.

Jake Grove has been in and out of workouts with a knee problem. Nate Garner has been lost for eight weeks following surgery. John Jerry was in and out of Tuesday’s morning workout. Vernon Carey has sat out a couple of practices as a precaution.

The Dolphins have an abundance of candidates on the line, but with Garner sidelined and Jerry’s situation raising concerns, Sparano is likely to ease off on contact drills the rest of this week.

It’s not that big a deal. Joe Berger, Cory Procter, Jake Long, Donald Thomas and Richie Incognito, among others, are still going strong nearly three weeks into camp. But this is a group that will be happy to see two-a-days and the stresses they bring to the body come to an end.

2. It was good to see inside linebacker Tim Dobbins back at full speed Tuesday.

Dobbins went down with a sprained left ankle last week and missed the opening exhibition game, leaving unproven youngsters Austin Spitler, Micah Johnson and J.D. Folsom to take over the ILB duties once Channing Crowder and Karlos Dansby left the game.

While those three didn’t embarrass themselves, they hardly have the pedigree of Dobbins, who played an important role for the AFC West champion Chargers last year.

Dobbins was back in action Tuesday and, in one drill, hit Ricky Williams hard enough to knock a pass out of his hands. Missing less than a week shouldn’t prevent him from being up to speed by the team the season begins.

3. The Dolphins need to do a better job of keeping their fans up on their practice schedule.

Sparano announced after his press briefing at about noon Tuesday that the evening workout, which had been scheduled for outside and was to be open to the public, would instead be in the bubble, making it closed. Fans started showing up at the practice facility a few hours later, unaware of the change, and left disappointed.

According to team officials, Sparano decided it was so hot for the morning practice that he didn’t want to put his players through another draining two-hour workout in similar heat six hours later. All well and good. But other than informing the media at his briefing of the decision, little was done to pass the word on to the fans.

It’s been a tough year for Dolfans trying to follow their team, with two outdoor evening practices called off by rain and several others changed. One could argue that the unpredictable weather is to blame, but the team has come off as insensitive to its fans as a result.